Flow Visuals

Flow visuals enable us to explore user behavior across a sequence of discrete time-stamped
events, towards a pre-defined goal. They only plot data that achieves this goal.

Flows are an implementation of a Sankey plot: blocks represent individual events, and the
width of the connection is proportional to the size of the measurement connecting any two
events. The plot is defined by a path, or sequence, through time-stamped events. To learn how
to identify and define events of a dataset, see Events.

Keep in mind the following 'best-practices' when defining the path of a flow visual:

Use a single common event as a 'start' of the flow visual. This makes it easier to
understand the sequencing and the pattern of the following events.

Define the intermediate event to include more than one event type, and use range bounds
(minimum and maximum) to correctly model the business use case. Also, ensure that the
intermediate event excludes the end goal.

Define the goal event to show the flow terminating when that goal is achieved.

Measure aggregates the measure that controls for the thickness
of the 'flow' connections, such as Record Count.

Filters selects for particular conditions.

Top K selects the top N number of entries.

All shelves, except Filters and Top K,
are mandatory.

Populate the shelves from the available Fields:

Under Dimensions, select timestamp and place
it on the Time shelf.

Under Dimensions, select user_id and place it
on the Session shelf.

Under Events, select Start and place it on the
Path shelf. Similarly, add to the right All
non-purchase application events and Purchase, in that
order.

Under Measurements, select Record Count and
place it on the Measure shelf.

Leave Filters and Top K empty.

Click Refresh Visual.

The flow visual appears.

Flow Visual

Note that each connection has only two segments, which does not model the real business
case.

To model more of the path that satisfies the event conditions, set minimum/maximum range
for the intermediate event, All non-purchase application events, through
the following steps. Note that setting a higher maximum models more of the data.

On the Path shelf, on All non-purchase application
events field, click the icon (down arrow).

Select Range, and then select Set
Minimum. In the Enter a number window modal, enter
the minimum number of events (we used 0), and click
Save.

Similarly, select Range, and then select Set
Maximum. In the Enter a number window modal, enter
the maximum number of events (we used 5), and click
Save.

Set Minimum and Maximum Range for Intermediate Events

Click Refresh Visual.

The flow visual appears, showing multiple paths towards a Purchase
outcome. Note that in this form, the numbered steps include the
Purchase event along the way, and each Purchase block
terminates the flow of connections that flow to it, in a step-down manner.

Flow Visual, Intermediate Events Range 0-5

Notice also that we can specify the Goal of the flow visual, to generate a plot
with a single terminating goal block. Perform the following steps:

On the Path shelf, on Purchase field, click
the icon (down arrow).

Select Behavior, and then select Set as
Goal.

Set the Goal Event

Click Refresh Visual.

The flow visual appears, showing multiple paths towards the Purchase
event. Note that in this form, the numbered steps exclude the
Purchase event, which collects all flows on the extreme right, and then
terminates them.

Flow Visual, Goal Set

To remove the Goal option from an event, do the following:

On the Path shelf, on Purchase field, click
the icon (down arrow).

Select Behavior, and then select Remove as
Goal.

You may wish to examine a particular business case scenario, such as how card
impressions influence the final decision to purchase. To see this path,
simply click on a flow leading to the first card impression, and the flow highlights the
entire path.

If the path is complicated, you can change the order of the nodes in any step of the flow
visual, simply by clicking on that node and dragging it up or down.

Flow Visual, Changing Node Order

In the following visualization, we arranged the nodes to place all card
impressions at the top, and all purchases at the bottom of each step.

Flow Visual, Changing Node Order

Consider the Tooltips in the following chart.

Tooltip 1 shows the information for the first card
impression event: that there are exactly 4 items and that it represents 11% of the
total.

Tooltip 2 demonstrates the correlation between two card
impression events: that it represents half of the source and all of the target, as
well as all of the link.

Tooltip 3 and Tooltip 4 are very
interesting because they demonstrate that when the user starts their application
interaction with card impression events, it typically takes 4 or 5 additional
steps to get to a purchase event.

Using the Flow Visual - Tooltips

Click (pencil icon) next to the title of the
visualization to edit it, and enter the new name.

Change the title to Campaign - Flow.

At the top left corner of the Visual Designer, click Save.

Lastly, remember that flow visuals only show data that achieves the desired goal, in the
specified number of steps. The visuals above cover 5 intermediate steps (specified as
maximum), and contains 35 purchases.

Flow Visual with 5 Intermediate Steps

Contrast this with a visual that covers 20 intermediate steps (specified as maximum); it
contains 51 purchases.